Stevens on, Robert Louis Balfour

novelist and e ayist, grandson of the preceding, born at Edinburgh, where in 1875 he was called to the bar, after disappointing his father by not following the family vocation of engineering; had already begun to write for the magazines, and soon abandoned law for the profe ion of letters, in which he rapidly came to the front; in 1878 appeared his first book, "An Inland Voyage," quickly followed by "Travels with a Donkey," "Virgin i bus Puerisque," "Familiar Studies"; with "Treasure Island" (1883) found a wider public as a writer of adventure and romance, and established himself permanently in the public favour with "Kidnapped" (1886, most popular story), "The Master of Ballantrae," "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," .; his versatility in letters was further revealed in his charming "A Child's Garden of Verse," "Ballads," "Memories and Portraits," and "A Footnote to History" (on Samoan politics); in 1890 failing health induced him to make his home in the island of Samoa, where he died and is buried; "His too short life," says Profe or Saints bury, "has left a fairly ample store of work, not always quite equal, seldom quite without a flaw, but charming, stimulating, distinguished as few things in this last quarter of a century have been" (1850-1894).